Path of Exile Hideout Competition

The Circle of Life
Hey there fellow exiles, may I present to you my entry for the hideout competition: The Circle of Life. The hideout offers nothing less than a journey through the usual life of an exile! Follow me to a magical place, which is deeply interwoven with a story about life. I hope you’ll enjoy it!

The early days
Every exile, no matter how strong he might become someday, needs to be protected in his young age. Uncle Einhar is there to assuage your young and untamed appetite with tasty beasts or fend off any intruders who make it past the barrier of the camp.

Once you get older and stronger, you get more and more eager to finally leave the confined area of the camp. After all life is about exploring the unknown, isn’t it? Finally, your great day arrives. You can leave the barren camp and start becoming a true adventurer.

Adventures of the Youth
The first person you meet out in the wild, is an old woman, who talks in a weird way and has a certain aura of knowledge around her. Soon you realize, that it’s a good idea to listen more closely to her remarks, as they unveil certain events in your future. This is the reason you decide to rest in her vicinity, because after all, it seems safe to be around someone who can glimpse into the otherwise unknown.

Not far from her you discover a magical device, that lets you access long-forgotten dreams. These dreams are the place, where you practice your skills and get ready to take on the meanest beasts known throughout Wraeclast.
Close to the magical stone circle, you also meet a crazy guy, who’s determined to dig a mine all the way to the other side of the damn planet. Unfortunately he can’t handle all the creatures, who lurk in the dark, so he depends on your help to reach his goal. And for you too, these encounters far below the surface, are some of the most challenging you will ever face.

Your journeys are usually long and strenuous but they also offer great rewards in the form of magical loot. On top of that you get to meet many great people, who make your adventures even more interesting, but also more dangerous.

Midlife Crisis and Spirituality
After some years however, there comes a time where the adventures of your youth don’t satisfy you any longer. You need change and you need it now! So you stumble out of your comfort zone and are greeted by an unbelievably thick jungle, coincidentally representing the chaos within your mind. The once clear path of your life gets obstructed; you need new goals, new faith, new guidance.

In the middle of the jungle you find some old ruins and you immediately realize what you were looking for: Spirituality! Adventures are great, but they cannot satisfy the human thirst for guidance and meaning.

If you are able to really get involved with yourself and the world around you, if you are able to find your spiritual energies, you might also be able to discover one of the most magical places this world has to offer.

Closing the Circle
More importantly, your newfound spirituality will also aid you through your last decades. The energy of the youth is gone, the colors lose their vividness. Your path is less clearly laid out before you, but it doesn’t bother you. Your life is still beautiful, because you accepted the Circle of Life a while ago.

And one day you will reach the final walk of your life. You can tell, because everything is turning kind of dark, long shadows seem to await you, and the general feeling of liveliness is leaving your body.

Now it’s time for your final decision: Do you want to disappear in the dark? Or do you choose to walk through the gates towards the light and begin the circle anew?

____________________________________________________________________

To get you more engaged with the story I chose to use zoomed-in pictures so far, but here are some additional pictures so you can have a little more overview and see more about the general structure of the hideout.

PS: This hideout was created together with my girlfriend. It is finally an aspect of PoE that she enjoys as well :)
Although the hideout was created around a specific theme, usability from a players standpoint was very important as well! It is fully functional in the sense that the most used things (Niko, Map Device, Stash/Navali) are arranged in a triangle without anything in the way. Jun and Alva sometimes open portals, so they were placed a little further away, but still very close to the more important objects/NPCs.

The true death is to be forgotten. For mortals it is often unfelt, but to a god it is experienced as the slow and agonising creep towards oblivion. It is in these moments that gods truly understand fear.

Here, deep within dream, someone or something is using this fear as punishment. These are the last traces of gods who once knew untold power and used it for ill, never immagining they would be judged. Now they are doomed to sit at the brink of death, perhaps forever. Or...they were.

To you the shrines are crude, broken things, none seemingly from the same time or place. Your entry here changes everything. With each fire lit, each stone read, each seed planted, you admit their existence. Now the land is charged with desperation. Will you heed the whispers on the wind or the visions that appear to you in your sleep? Either way, the gods know that their jailor will not be gone forever.

I try to turn my hideout into a place where ours exiles and masters can work together.
They all have a dedicated spot for their own activities :

Navali talk to spirits and makes prophecies,
Nico dig always far in the mine,
Einhar slaught some beasts, maybe cooking some of them
Alva prepare incursions,
Jun keep an eye on the syndicate prison while plan attacks,
Zana search after some clues in the atlas (with Helena's help, lot of work)

This is the first ship that Einhar ever bought, and Einhar loves ships. Why are the masters taking Einhar's ship out into the waters? To Explore of course!

The masters decided to travel across the lands to discover the hidden treasures on different islands, and are now making a quick stop before their next venture.

The Deck

Here, you can see the entrance of the ship. It isn't much, but its enough to carry all the necessities and keep the masters safe out on the waters.

The masters are prepared for anything and thought it would be a good idea to bring along a crane in case they needed to pull up anything big from their excursions.

While they intended to travel light, the masters have an incredible amount of cargo with them

The Bow

Here we have Zana, going over the map of Wraeclast to see which place they need to head to next

Being Einhar's boat, it is obvious that he would be the one steering it. Here he is getting ready to set sail

The Weapon's Stash

Alva and Jun were having a discussion about the weapons and armor that they carried. They wonder whether it will be enough for their adventures.

The Port

A while ago, there was a lifeboat here, but Einhar decided that it would be too much to carry on.

The SternHere we have some beasts that Einhar found on one of the previous islands that they visited

This is the back of the boat. It doesn't have much besides the steam outlet and some machinery to keep it sailing smoothly

The Quarters

The ship is not only well equipped but also has everything that the masters would need to have a comfortable time out at sea. Let's take a look at the residential quarters in the boat

Here we have the dining area + kitchen. The masters have enough supplies to ensure that they are stocked up when out at sea.

Next, near the Kitchen, we have the entrance to the master's rooms. They don't want us to see it at the moment because they think it's 'messy'.

The Study

Ahead of the kitchen, we have the research and study. This is the place where the masters can find the information that they need and go over what they have already found. It also functions as a library which has some of the most informative books in Wraeclast.

The study has a special portal device that lets the masters traverse to other worlds right from the ship